The Image of
the Enviornment
Looking at cities can give a special pleasure,
however commonplace the sight may be. Like a
piece of architecture, the city is a construction
in space, but one of vast scale, a thing perceived
only in the course of long spans of time. City
design is therefore a temporal art, but it can
rarely use the controlled and limited sequences
of other temporal arts like music.

At every instant, there is more
than the eye can see, more than
the ear can hear, a setting or a
view waiting to be explored.

On different occasions and for
different people, the sequences are
reversed, interrupted, abandoned,
cut across. It is seen in all lights
and all weathers.
Nothing is experienced by itself, but always
in relation to its surroundings, the sequences
of events leading up to it, the memory of
past experiences.â&#x20AC;ŚEvery citizen has had long
associations with some part of this city, and his
image is soaked in memories and meanings.

4

Moving elements in a city and in
particular the people and their activities,
are as important as the stationary
physical parts. We are not simply
observers of this spectacle, but are
ourselves a part of it, on the stage with
the other participants. Most often, our
perception of the city is not sustained,
but rather partial, fragmentary, mixed
with other concerns. Nearly every sense
is in operation, and the image is the
composite of them all. Not only is the
city an object which is perceived (and
perhaps enjoyed) by millions of people
of widely diverse class and character, but
it is the product of many builders who
are constantly modifying the structure
for reasons of their own.

While it may be stable in general
outlines for some time, it is
ever changing in detail.
Only partial control can be exercised
over its growth and form. There is no
final result, only a continuous succession
of phases. No wonder, then, that the art
of shaping cities for sensuous enjoyment
is an art quite separate from architecture
or music or literature. It may learn a
great deal from these other arts, but
it cannot imitate them.

6

7

A beautiful and delightful city
environment is an oddity, some
would say an impossibility.

Not one American city larger
than a village is of consistently
fine quality, although a few
towns have some pleasant
fragments. It is hardly
surprising, then, that most
Americans have little idea of
what it can mean to live in
such an environment.

But they are hardly aware
of the potential value of
harmonious surroundings, a
world which they may have
briefly glimpsed only as tourists
or as an escaped vacationer.

8

They can have little sense of
what a setting can mean in
terms of daily delight, or as
a continuous anchor for their
lives, or an extension of the
meaningfulness and richness
of the work.

9

Although clarity or
legibility is by no means the
only important property
of a beautiful city, it is of
special importance when
considering environments
at the urban scale of size,
time, and complexity.

To understand this, we must
consider not just the city as a
thing in itself, but the city being
perceived by its inhabitants.
Structuring and identifying
the environment is a vital
ability among all mobile
animals. Many kind of cues
are used:

the visual sensations of color, shape, motion,
or polarization of light, as well as other senses
such as smell, sound, touch, kinesthesia, sense of
gravity, and perhaps of electric or magnetic fields.
Psychologists have also
studied this ability in man,
although rather sketchily
or under limited laboratory
conditions. Despite a few
remaining puzzles, it now
seems unlikely that there
is any mystic â&#x20AC;&#x153;instinctâ&#x20AC;?
of way-finding. Rather
there is a consistent use and
organization of definite
sensory cues from the
external environment. This
organization is fundamental
to the efficiency and to
the very survival of freemoving life.

10

11

To become completely lost is perhaps a rather
rare experience for most people in the modern
city. We are supported by the presence of others
and by special way-finding devices: maps, street
numbers, route signs, bus placards.

But let the mishap of disorientation
once occur, and the sense of anxiety
and even terror that accompanies it
reveals to us how closely it is linked to
our sense of balance and well-being.
the very word â&#x20AC;&#x153;lostâ&#x20AC;? in our language
means much more than simple
geographical uncertainty; it carries
overtones of utter disaster.

12

13

In the process of way-finding,

the strategic link is the
environmental image, the
generalized mental picture of
the exterior physical world
that is held by an individual.
This image is the product
both of immediate sensation
and of the memory of past
experience, and it is used to
interpret information and to
guide experience and action.
The need to recognize and
pattern our surroundings
is so crucial, and has such
long roots in the past, that
this image has wide practical
and emotional importance
to the individual. Obviously
a clear image enables one
to move about easily and
quickly: to find a friendâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
house or a policeman or a
button store. But an ordered
environment can do more
than this; it may serve as

14

a road frame of reference,
an organizer of activity or
belief or knowledge. On
the basis of a structural
understanding of Manhattan,
for example, one can order a
substantial quantity of facts
and fancies about the nature
of the world we live in.
Like any good framework,
such a structure gives the
individual a possibility of
choice and a starting-point
for the acquisition of further
information. A clear image
of the surroundings is thus
a useful basis for individual
growth.

15

A vivid and integrated
physical setting,
capable of producing
a sharp image, plays a
social role as well.
It can furnish the raw material for the
saymbols and collective memories of
group communication.

A striking landscape is the skeleton upon
which many primitive races erect their
socially important myths.
Common memories of the â&#x20AC;&#x153; home
townâ&#x20AC;? were often the first and easiest
point of contact between lonely
soldiers during the war.
A good environmental image gives
its possessor an important sense of
emotional security. She can establish
an harmonious relationship between
herself and the outside world. This
is the obverse of the fear that comes
with disorientation; it means that
the sweet sense of home is strongest
when home is not only familiar but
distinctive as well.

16

17

Indeed, a distinctive and legible environment not only
offers security but also heightens the potential depth and
intensity of human experience. Although life is far from
impossible in the visual chaos of the modern city, the
same daily action could take on new meaning if carried
out in a more vivid setting. Potentially, the city is in itself
the powerful symbol of a complex society. If visually well
set forth, it can also have strong expressive meaning.

It may be argued against
the importance of physical
legibility that the human brain
is marvelously adaptable, that
with some experience one
can learn to pick oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s way
through the most disordered
or featureless surroundings.
there are abundant examples
of precise navigation over
the â&#x20AC;&#x153;tracklessâ&#x20AC;? wastes of
sea, sand, or ice, or through a
tangle maze of jungle.

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19

Yet even the sea has the sun and stars, the
winds, currents, birds, and sea-colors without
which unaided navigation would be impossible.
The fact that only skilled professionals could
navigate among the Polynesian Islands, and
this only after extensive training, indicates
the difficulties imposed by this particular
environment. Strain and anxiety accompanied
even the best-prepared expeditions
In our own world, we might say that almost
everyone can, if attentive, learn to navigate
in Jersey City, but only at the cost of some
effort and uncertainty. Moreover, the positive
values of legible surroundings are missing:
the emotional satisfaction, the framework for
communication or conceptual organization,
the new depths that it may bring to everyday
experience. These are pleasures we lack, even
if our present city environment is not so
disordered as to impose an intolerable strain on
those who are familiar with it.

20

21

It must be granted that there is some value in
mystification, labyrinth, or surprise in the environment.
Many of us enjoy the House of Mirrors, and there is a
certain charm in the croo sked streets of Boston. This
is so, however, only under two conditions. First, there
must be no danger of losing basic form or orientation, of
never coming out. The surprise must occur in an overall framework; the confusions must be small regions in
a visible whole. Furthermore, the labyrinth or mystery
must in itself have some form that can be explored and
in time be apprehended. Complete chaos without hint of
connection is never pleasurable.But these second thoughts
point to an important qualification.

The observer himself
should play an active role in
perceiving the world and have
a creative part in developing
his image. He should have the
power to change that image
to fit changing needs.
An environment which is ordered in precise and final
detail may inhibit new patterns of activity. A landscape
whose every rock tells a story may make difficult the
creation of fresh stories. Although this may not seem to be
a critical issue in our present urban chaos, yet it indicates
that what we seek is not a final but an open-ended order,
capable of continuous further development.

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23

Building the image
The environment suggest distinctions and relations, and
the observerâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;with great adaptability and in the light of his
own purposesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;selects, organizes, and endows with meaning
what he sees. The image so developed now limits and
emphasizes what is seen, while the image itself is being tested
against the filtered perceptual input in a constant interacting
process. Thus the image of a given reality may vary
significantly between different observers. The coherence of
the image may arise in several ways.

There may be little in the
real object that is ordered
or remarkable, and yet its
mental picture has gained
identity and organization
through long familiarity.

Environmental images are the
result of a two-way process
between the observer and
his environment.

One man may find objects easily on what seems to anyone
else to be totally disordered work table. Alternatively, an
object seen for the first time may be identified and related
not because it is individually familiar but because it conforms
to a stereotype already constructed by the observer. An
American can always spot the corner drugstore, however
indistinguishable it might be to a Bushman. Again, a new
object may seem to have strong structure or identity because
of striking physical features which suggest or impose their
own pattern. Thus the sea or a great mountain can rivet the
attention of one coming form the flat plains of the interior,
even if he is so young or so parochial as to have no name for
these great phenomena.

24

25

As manipulators of the physical
environment, city planners are
primarily interested in the external
agent in the interaction which produces
the environmental image. Different
environments resist or facilitate the
process of image-making.

Each individual creates and bears
his own image, but there seems to
be substantial agreement among
members of the same group. It
is these group images, exhibiting
consensus among significant
numbers, that interest city planners
who aspire to model an environment
that will be used by many people.

Any given form, a fine vase or a lump
of clay, will have a high or a low
probability of evoking a strong image
among various observers.

26

Presumably this probability can be stated
with greater and greater precision as the
observers are grouped in more and more
homogeneous classes of age, sex, culture,
occupation, temperament, or familiarity.

27

The systems of orientation
which have been used vary
widely throughout the world,
changing from culture to
culture, and from landscape
to landscape.

28

The world may be organized
around a set of focal points,
or be broken into named
regions, or be linked by
remembered routes. Varied
as these methods are, and
inexhaustible as seem to be
the potential clues which
a man may pick out to
differentiate his world, they
cast interesting side-lights

on the means that we use
today to locate ourselves in
our own city world. For the
most part these examples seem
to echo, curiously enough,
the formal types of image
elements into which we can
conveniently divide the city
image: path, landmark, edge,
node, and district.

29

An environmental image may be
analyzed into three components:

identity
structure
meaning
It is useful to abstract these for analysis if it is remembered
that in reality they always appear together. A workable
image require first the identification of an object, which
implies its distinction from other things, its recognition as
a separable entity. This is called identity not in the sense
of equality with something else, but with the meaning of
individuality or oneness. Second, the image must include
the spatial or pattern relation of the object to the observer
and to other objects. Finally, this object must have some
meaning for the observer, whether practical or emotional.
Meaning is also a relation, but quite a different one from
spatial or pattern relation.

30

Structure and
identity
Thus an image useful for making an exit requires the
recognition of a door as a distinct entity, of its spatial
relation to the observer, and its meaning as a whole for
getting out. These are not truly separable. The visual
recognition of a door is matted together with its meaning
as a door. It is possible, however, to analyze the door
in terms of its identity of form and clarity of position,
considered as if they were prior to its meaning. Such an
analytic feat might be pointless in the study of a door, but
not in the study of the urban environment. To begin with,
the question of meaning in the city is a complicated one.
Group images of meaning are less likely to be consistent at
this level than are the perceptions of entity and relationship.
Meaning, moreover, is not so easily influenced by physical
manipulation as are these other two components.

If it is our purpose to build cities for the
enjoyment of vast numbers of people of
widely diverse backgroundâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and cities
which will also be adaptable to future
purposesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;we may even be wise to
concentrate on the physical clarity of the
image and to allow meaning to develop
without our direct guidance.
The image of the Manhattan skyline may stand for vitality,
power, decadence, mystery, congestion, greatness, or what
you will, but in each case that sharp picture crystallizes
and reinforces the meaning. So various are the individual
meanings of a city, even while its form may be easily
communicable, that it appears possible to separate meaning
from form, at least in the early stages of analysis. This study
will therefore concentrate on the identity and structure of
city images.

31

If an image is to have value for
orientation in the living space,
it may have several qualities.
It must be sufficient
True in a pragmatic sense, allowing
the individual to operate within his
environment to the extent desired.
The map, whether exact or not, must
be good enough to get one home.
It must be sufficiently clear and well
integrated to be economical of mental
effort: the map must be readable.

It should be safe
with a surplus of clues so that
alternative actions are possible and
the risk of failure is not too high. If
a blinking light is the only sign for
a critical turn, a power failure may
cause disaster.

The image should
preferably be
open-ended
adaptable to change, allowing the
individual to continue to investigate
and organize reality: there should be
blank spaces where he can extend the
drawing for himself.

It should be
communicable to
other individuals
The relative importance of these
criteria for a â&#x20AC;&#x153;goodâ&#x20AC;? image will
vary with different persons in
different situations; one will prize
an economical and sufficient
system, another an open-ended and
communicable one.
32

33

Imageability
Since the emphasis here will be on
the physical environment as the
independent variable, this study will
look for physical qualities which
relate to the attributes of identity and
structure in the mental image.

This leads to the definition of what might
be called imageability: that quality in
a physical object which gives it a high
probability of evoking a strong image in
any given observer. It is that shape, color,
or arrangement which facilitates the
making of vividly identified, powerfully
structured, highly useful mental images
of the environment.
It might also be called legibility, or
perhaps
visibility in a heightened
sense, where objects are not only able
to be seen, but are presented sharply
and intensely to the senses.

34

35

Half a century ago, Stern discussed this
attribute of an artistic object and called
it apparency. While art is not limited to
this single end, he felt that one of its two
basic functions was

â&#x20AC;&#x153;to create images which by clarity and
harmony of form fulfill the need for
vividly comprehensible appearance.â&#x20AC;?
In his mind, this was an essential first
step toward the expression of inner
meaning.

36

37

A highly imageable (apparent, legible, or
visible) city in this peculiar sense would
seem well formed, distinct, remarkable;
it would invite the eye and the ear to
greater attention and participation. The
sensuous grasp upon such surroundings
would not merely be simplified, but also
extended and deepened.

Such a city would be one that would be
apprehended over time as a pattern of
high continuity with many distinctive
parts clearly interconnected.

38

Such a city would be one that would be
apprehended over time as a pattern of
high continuity with many distinctive
parts clearly interconnected. The
perceptive and familiar observer could
absorb new sensuous impacts without
disruption of his basic image, and
each new impact would touch upon
many previous elements. He would
be well oriented, and he could move
easily. He would be highly aware of
his environment. The city of Venice
might be an example of such a highly
imageable environment. In the United
States, one is tempted to cite parts of
Manhattan, San Francisco, Boston, or
perhaps the lake front of Chicago.

39

These are characterizations that
flow from our definitions. the
concept of imageability does not
necessarily connote something
fixed, limited, precise, unified, or
regularly ordered, although it may
sometimes have these qualities.
Nor does it mean apparent
at glance, obvious, patent, or
plain. The total environment
to be patterned is highly
complex, while the obvious
image is soon boring,
and can point to only a
few features of the living
world. The imageability
of city form will be the
center of the study to
follow there are other basic
properties in a beautiful
environment: meaning or

40

expressiveness, sensuous
delight, rhythm, stimulus,
choice. Our concentration
on imageability does not
deny their importance. Our
purpose is simply to consider
the need for identity and
structure in our perceptual
world, and to illustrate the
special relevance of this
quality to the particular case
of the complex, shifting
urban environment.

41

Since image development is
a two-way process between
observer and observed, it is
possible to strengthen the image
either by symbolic devices,
by the retraining
of the perceiver,
or by reshaping
oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s surroundings,
you can provide
the viewer with a
symbolic diagram
of how the world
fits together: a map or a set
of written instructions. You
can even install a machine for
giving directions, as has recently
been done in New York. While
such devices are extremely
useful for providing condensed
data on interconnections,
they are also precarious, since
orientation fails if the device
is lost, and the device itself
must constantly be referred and
fitted to reality.â&#x20AC;ŚMoreover,
the complete experience of
interconnection the full depth
of a vivid image, is lacking.

As long as he can fit
reality to the diagram,
he has a clue to the
relatedness of things.

42

43

You may also train the observer. Brown remarks that
a maze through which subjects were asked to move
blindfolded seemed to them at first to be one unbroken
problem. On repetition, parts of the pattern, particularly
the beginning and end, became familiar and assumed
the character of localities. Finally, when they could
tread the maze without error, the whole system seemed
to have become one locality. DeSilva describes the case
of a boy who seemed to have “automatic” directional
orientation, but proved to have been trained from
infancy (by a mother who could not distinguish right
from left) to respond to “the east side of the port” or
“the south end of the dresser.” Shipton’s account of the
reconnaissance for the ascent of Everest offers a dramatic
case of such learning. Approaching Everest from a new
direction, Shipton immediately recognized the main
peaks and saddles that he knew from the north side. But
the Sherpa guide accompanying him, to whom both
sides were long familiar, had never realized that these
were the same features, and he greeted the revelation
with surprise and delight. Kilpatrick describes the process
of perceptual learning forced on an observer by new
stimuli that no longer fit into previous images. It begins
with hypothetical forms that explain the new stimuli
conceptually, while the illusion of the old forms persists.

The personal experience of most of
us will testify to this persistence
of an illusory image long after its
inadequacy is conceptually realized.
We stare into the jungle an see only the sunlight on the
green leaves but a warning noise tells us that an animal
is hidden there. The observer then learns to interpret
the scene by singling out “give-away” clues and by
reweighting previous signals. The camouflaged animal
may now be picked up by the reflection of this eyes.
Finally by repeated experience the entire pattern of
perception is changed and the observer need no longer
consciously search for give-aways, or add new data to an
old framework. He has achieved an image which will
operate successfully in the new situation, seeming natural
and right. Quite suddenly the hidden animal appears
among the leaves, “as plain as day.”
44

45

In the saame way,

we must learn to see the
hidden forms in the vast
sprawl of our cities.
We are not accustomed to
organizing and imaging an
artificial environment on such
a large scale; yet our activities
are pushing us toward that end.
Curt Sachs gives an example of
a failure to make connections
beyond a certain level. The
voice and drumbeat of the
North American Indian follow
entirely different tempos,
the two being perceived
independently. Searching for a
musical analogy of our own, he
mentions our church services,
where we do not think of
coordinating the choir inside
with the bells above. In our
vast metropolitan areas we do
not connect the choir and the
bells; like the Sherpa, we see

46

only the sides of Everest and
not he mountain. To extend
and deepen our perception of
the environment would be to
continue a long biological and
cultural development which
has gone from the contact
sense to the distant sense and
from the distant senses to
symbolic communications.
Our thesis is that we are now
able to develop our image of
the environment by operation
and on the external physical
shape as well as by an internal
learning process. Indeed, the
complexity of our environment
now compels us to do so.

47

Primitive man was forced to improve
his environmental image by adapting
his perception to the given landscape.
He could effect minor changes
in his environment with cairns,
beacons, or tree blazes, but substantial
modifications for visual clarity or
visual interconnection were confined
to house sites or religious enclosures.

Only powerful civilizations
can begin to act on their total
environment at a significant
scale. The conscious remolding
of the large-scale physical
environment has been possible
only recently and so the problem
of environmental imageability is
a new one.
Technically, we can now make
completely new landscapes in a brief
time, as in the Dutch polders. Here
the designers are already at grips with
the question of how to form the total
scene so that it is easy for the human
observer to identify its parts and to
structure the whole.
48

49

We are rapidly building a
new functional unit, the
metropolitan region, but
we have yet to grasp that
this unit, too, should have
its corresponding image,
Suzanne Langer sets the
problem in her capsule
definition of architecture:
â&#x20AC;&#x153;it is the total enviornment
made visible.â&#x20AC;? It is clear
that the form of a city or
of a metropolis will not

50

exhibit some gigantic,
stratified other. It will be
a complicated pattern,
continuous and whole,
yet intricate and mobile.
It must be plastic to
the perceptual habits of
citizens, open-ended to
change of function and
meaning, receptive to the
formation of new imagery.
It must invite its viewers to
explore the world.

51

True enough, we need an environment
which is not simply well organized, but
poetic and symbolic as well. It should speak
of the individuals and their complex society,
of their aspirations and their historical
tradition of the natural setting, and of the
complicated functions and movements of
the city world. But clairty of structure and
vividness of identity are first steps to the
development of strong symbols.
By appearing as a remarkable and
well knit place, the city could provide
a ground for the clustering and
organization of these meanings and
associations Such a sense of place in
itself enhances every human activity
that occurs there, and encourages
the deposit of a memory trace. By
the intensity of its life and the close

52

packing of its disparate people,
the great city is a romantic place,
rich in symbolic detail. it is for us
both splendid and terrifying, â&#x20AC;&#x153;the
landscape of our confusions,â&#x20AC;? as
Flanagan calls it. Were it legible,
truly visible, then fear and confusion
might be replaced with delight in the
richness and power of the scene.

53

By the intensity of its life and the
close packing of its disparate people,
the great city is a romantic place, rich
in symbolic detail. It is for us both
splendid and terrifying, â&#x20AC;&#x153;the landscape
of our confusions,â&#x20AC;? as Flanagan calls it.
Were it legible, truly visible, then fear and
confusion might be replaced with delight in the
richness and power of the scene.

54

55

In the development of the image, education
in seeing will be quite as important as the
reshaping of what is seen.

56

57

Indeed, they together
form a circular, or
hopefully a spiral, process:
visual education impelling
the citizen to act upon
his visual world, and this
action causing him to

If art and audience
grow together, then
our cities will be
a source of daily
enjoyment to millions
of their inhabitants

see even more acutely. A highly
developed art of urban design is
linked to the creation of a critical
and attentive audience.